Speaking about nightmares is dangerous. I don’t know if there are out there reading this , dream interpreters who can deduce things about my inner self I don’t want to reveal.

I’ll write though about a recurring nightmare I have had for a long time.

To explain it I have to describe a little one of the main streets of my city. It has two big roundabouts with a big fountain in the middle. When I was a kid, I couldn’t distinguish one from the other and I thought that there was only one fountain, so I couldn’t understand why sometimes there were certain buildings around and sometimes there were other buildings completely different. When I went for the first time for a walk with my parents all the way down that street and we passed by the two fountains, I understood and got somehow oriented.

In my nightmare I’m out doing some errands and arrive to one of the roundabouts. Suddenly I lose balance and fall down. I get completely dizzy, and when I open my eyes, all the buildings and the streets around the fountain are different. I get up and try to go home but the streets keep changing its place, so I get completely lost. I feel like in a labyrinth. Finally, when I think I recognise something near my home I end up in a cul-de-sac where there is only a dirty, black charcoal warehouse, guarded by a threatening dog growling and barking loud.

I’ve worked many years as reporter on courts. I got to know everything about criminals. I remember once I attended a trial against a man who was clearly innocent and was dragged to the courts by the false testimony of an evil woman and her daughter. She was the head of an organisation of smuggled immigrants. Fortunately his lawyer was able to expose evident inconsistencies between the testimonies of the two women and he was set free. I don’t know why, there were no charges against the two women. I remember I went home deeply impressed by that case, and that night I had a nightmare. In my dream the police arrested me and sent me to jail without telling me why. One, two, three, four, five heavy doors, had closed with a clang behind me. I was stripped of everything I had. Reduced to a number. If only I could be alone! But not. I had been thrown in a cell where another inmate was living. I’m used to live in the inner jail of my depression, I’m not scared of solitude. But being the whole time under the gaze of a stranger, when I was so scared and puzzled, was a torture. I looked up and saw two narrow windows with bars. The view: a concrete wall. I was trapped. The anguish was unbearable. I woke up in tears.

You step into an acquaintance’s house for the first time, and discover that everything — from the furniture, to the books, to the art on the wall — is identical to your home. What happens next?

– Please, make yourself at home.

– Nothing easiest. Everything is so familiar… You even have a cat, like my little Gomiguan.

– What a coincidence!, his name is also Gomiguan. How did you choose such a name?

– Is a long story. What about you?

– It was the name of the imaginary friend of my baby sister long time ago.

– That’s impossible. It was the name of the imaginary friend of MY baby sister. No way we both have the same weird story. And why are you wearing the same clothes I’m wearing today?

– I was going to ask you the same question.

– I’m not feeling well. Can I go to the restroom?

– I’ll show you the way

– No thank you. I know my way.

Once in the restroom, I open the cabinet and I find a toothpaste and a toothbrush exactly as I left them at home minutes ago. Even my facial cream is there with the same stain in the jar that mine has.

I’m scared. Where am I? Who is this woman who opened her door so kindly to me? Why she has everything I have?

In my way back from the restroom I see the library’s door open. I enter. All is exactly like at home. When I enter a library I usually look first at the books. But this time my eyes get immediately fixed in a framed picture on the desk. It’s my father’s photo! That’s not a mere coincidence. Here there is something more going on.

– So you discovered everything!, she says laughing and staring at me coldly from the door.

I turn scared with the photo in my hands. I look at her face. She has transformed. Now she looks exactly like me!

I run to the restroom. I look at the mirror. I see my reflection. I don’t recognise myself. I’m now blonde and fat. Just like her when I arrived. I’m crying. Who am I?